{ PERFECT & PRICELESS } 
Value Systems on the Blockchain

Curated by Georg Bak, at Kate Vass Galerie in Zurich
16 November, 2018 - 11 January, 2019

CryptoPunks PERFECT & PRICELESS Value Systems on the Blockchain Perfect and Priceless exhibition at Kate Vass Galerie in Zurich curated by Georg Bak digital art advisor
“Rather than money issued by a nation and administrated by central banks, art is a networked, decentralized, widespread system of value.” —Hito Steyerl


In January 2014, at the same time Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan bank famously stated that Bitcoin was a terrible store of value, the cryptocurrency - anonymously founded by Satoshi Nakamoto - was passing the 1000 US$ mark for the first time. This was followed by a crash - caused by the bankruptcy of the exchanger Mount Gox - until it recovered again and reached a record price at almost 20'000 USD in December of 2017. Within a short time, it was possible for brave investors to become millionaires, including the Winklevoss brothers who are now Bitcoin Billionaires. Since this moment, mainstream media has been reporting daily on crypto-currencies and the emerging revolution of blockchain technology.

The crypto-hype also left its traces in the art world. When people were willing to pay a five-digit amount for a virtual currency why wouldn't they be willing to pay the same sum for a cartoon kitten? It didn't take long for the smiling crypto kitties to conquer the hearts of speculators and blockchain enthusiasts, with some characters reaching five to six-digit price tags.

For the first time in Switzerland, Kate Vass Galerie in Zürich is presenting a comprehensive and unique exhibition on blockchain art, showcasing the most important protagonists of this movement. This art exhibition is curated by Georg Bak.

The blockchain art pioneer Rob Myers from Vancouver is visualizing crypto currency transactions in his continuing series Blockchain Aesthetics while referencing concept art from the 1970s. In order to transmit crypto from one wallet to another wallet (peer to peer), a hashrate is being generated and compressed through a mathematical encryption method. The hashrates are always the same length independently from the size of information they contain. The artist renders Bitcoin transactions as rows of coloured squares or circles. Each byte of the 32-byte transaction is rendered as a square or a circle of a 256-colour palette. The transactions are being displayed on a monitor as colourful abstract moving images with a narrative context. Although the imagery reminds us of 4096 Colours by Gerhard Richter or the spot paintings by Damien Hirst, they have a different connotation.

For the creation of Bitcoins and their transactions, ‘’miners’’, who provide computing power in order to calculate hashrates, are required. Artists César Escudero Andaluz  & Martin Nadal have created Bittercoin which is an old calculator machine hacked to be used as a miner validating the pending bitcoin transactions in the blockchain. Bittercoin combines Internet of Things (IoT), media archeology and economics. It works as the most basic computer, increasing the time necessary to produce bitcoins to almost an eternity. The operations are displayed on the calculator screen and printed afterwards.

For the duration of the exhibition period, it seeks to produce money insistently and using an economic system that is wholly different from the traditional art market. Paper accumulates around the machine making visible the amount of calculation required, as well as the natural resources expended in the process. Bittercoin is a fully functional miner that connects to the blockchain. In the event of successfully mining a block, although very unlikely, the nonce would be sent back to the server and entered into the corresponding bitcoins of the rewarded bitcoin wallet.

With the emergence of ICO's (Initial Coin Offerings), a new crowd funding model was launched that enables companies to raise funds publicly from investors in a more efficient and less cost-intensive way as through an IPO (Initial Public Offering). An artist's studio often functions in the same way as a small company. For example, Ed Fornieles Studio has developed the Certificate Program as an attempt to re-imagine the economy of finance and funding in the art world by applying a model that is open, accessible, and transparent. A hybrid between a financial product and an art print, the certificate distills and formalizes the commerce of art with the relatively affordable price of 550 USD. The certificates are an easy way to participate in an artist economy that rewards belief in an artist’s practice with a share of future profits. This is made possible by the use of an Ethereum contract or ‘’smart contract’’ – a self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. The key to which is hidden under a scratch panel on the certificate itself. At any point, the collector can scratch the panel, damaging the art object but retrieving the key that will give them access to their percentage of a fund generated from sales of artworks and certificates. The Certificate is an investment in the artists' future work: all proceeds from the program are funneled into the development and production of new projects. This artistic approach reminds us of the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp who also created certificates in the 1920s in order to let investors participate in his earnings at the casino. Nowadays these Monte Carlo Bonds are being traded at auction above one million US dollars and, for the holders, it proved to be an excellent investment.

A common appetite for an art investment among millennial art collectors and new principles in token economics have inspired by Irish artist Kevin Abosch to turn himself into crypto currency. "We come into the world like newly minted coins - perfect and priceless. Yet we are constantly being ascribed a value." Abosch explains. He created 100 physical artworks and a limited edition of 10 million virtual artworks entitled IAMA Coin. The virtual works are standard ERC-20 tokens and token owners are free to share these artworks and even divide them into smaller pieces before sharing.

In a recent collaboration, Kevin Abosch and Ai Weiwei joined forces in order to tokenize priceless shared moments such as "Sharing Tea". Each priceless moment is represented by a unique blockchain address which is "inoculated" by a small amount of a virtual artwork (crypto-token) called PRICELESS (symbol: PRCLS). Only two ERC20 tokens were created for the project, but they are divisible up to 18 decimal places. One of the two PRICELESS tokens will be unavailable at any price. The remaining token is divided into one million fractions of one token and available to collectors and institutions. Furthermore a very limited series of physical prints - signed by both artists - were made. The wallet addresses are virtually worthless as the required private keys have been thrown away by the artists.

With the emergence of countless virtual crypto currencies, these recurring questions exist: How can consensus and a monetary union be built? Which currencies will effectively be suitable and accepted as a payment token or as a sustainable storage of value? How can a market mechanism develop with constant supply and demand while the stakeholders are concurrently protected by law?

Highlighted Artworks

JOHN WATKINSON | CRYPTOPUNKS
The original blockchain collectibles
JOHN WATKINSON | CRYPTOPUNKS The original blockchain collectibles

JOHN WATKINSON
CryptoPunk #207, 2018

The CryptoPunks are 24x24 pixel portraits, generated algorithmically. Ten thousand of them were created and made available (originally for free) on the Ethereum Blockchain in June 2017. It was the first project to tokenize art on the Ethereum blockchain, which in turn inspired projects such as CryptoKitties and Dada.NYC, and formed the basis of the ERC-721 standard that is now used for nearly all tokenized art projects.

All of the CryptoPunks were quickly claimed back in June 2017 and are now actively traded on the secondary market. For the first time, physical prints of punks are being issued by co-creators John Watkinson (pixel artist) and Matt Hall (Ethereum developer). The selected CryptoPunks belonged to Hall and Watkinson, but their ownership has been transferred to paper Ethereum wallets, which are enclosed in sealed envelopes. Each print comes with a corresponding envelope which can simply be left closed, or opened when the owner would like to transact the digital entity on the Ethereum blockchain.

Making Punks on Paper

"When first asked about participating (in the exhibition) we hesitated. The CryptoPunks are a distinctly digital work, comprising both the image of the characters and the blockchain mechanisms for ownership and auction. We weren’t sure how to show them in a physical gallery setting while preserving their digital nature and what makes them unique.

The solution we eventually settled on attaches the digital ownership of a CryptoPunk to a physical print using something called a “Paper Wallet.” This means we seal a long passphrase inside a physical envelope, then seal the back with a custom wax seal to protect the contents. The long passphrase inside the envelope is the key to accessing digital ownership of this punk on the Ethereum blockchain. As long as the wax seal on the envelope is undisturbed you can be sure that the digital version of the art is still attached to the physical print in your possession. You are then free to buy and sell the physical print and envelope as a proxy for the digital edition." —Larva Labs

Stages of the wax-sealed CryptoPunk

CryptoPunks on paper by Larva Labs exhibited at Kate Vass in Zurich

Installation view of nine CryptoPunks on Paper

KEVIN ABOSCH AND AI WEIWEI | WHAT IS PRICELESS?
Tokenizing priceless, fleeting moments and experiences

Kevin Abosch and Ai Weiwei Berlin 2018

KEVIN ABOSCH & AI WEIWEI, Berlin 2018

Kevin Abosch has been using blockchain addresses as proxies to distill emotional value for some time now, and with Ai Weiwei has “tokenized” their priceless shared moments together such as "sharing tea" or "talking about the art market" are the building blocks of human experience. All moments in life are priceless. Each priceless moment is represented by a unique blockchain address which is “inoculated” by a small amount of a virtual artwork (crypto-token) we created called "PRICELESS" (symbol: PRCLS). Only 2 ERC20 tokens were created for the project, but as they are divisible to 18 decimal places, these works of virtual art could potentially be distributed to billions of people. Furthermore, a very limited series of physical prints were made.

Kevin Abosch and Ai Weiwei PRICELESS (2018)

KEVIN ABOSCH AND AI WEIWEI
PRICELESS, 2018

The digital works, the PRICELESS token (symbol: PRCLS) is an ERC20 token on the Ethereum Blockchain. Only 2 tokens were created for the project, but as they are divisible to 18 decimal places, these works of virtual art could potentially be distributed to billions of people.

The physical works feature blockchain contract address alphanumerics. Each wallet is filled with a nominal amount of PRCLS token, validating the wallet and symbolically inoculating the moment. An ethereum wallet is used for sending and receiving the Ether currency. Each wallet has a long address, similar to a bank account number. The difference between a contract address and a personal wallet address is that contract addresses can also receive data.

Kevin Abosch I AM A COIN (2018)

KEVIN ABOSCH
I AM A COIN (Commodification of Self), 2018

In the aftermath of the sale of photograph “Potato #345” in 2015 for €1 million conceptual artist Kevin Abosch found the attention migrating from the artistic value of his work to the monetary value. In response to feeling like he was being treated like a commodity, Abosch decided to tokenize himself on the Ethereum blockchain, effectively creating 10 million virtual artworks entitled I AM A COIN. He also made 100 physical works on paper stamped using the artist's own blood, with the I AM A COIN contract address comprised of 42 alphanumerics, corresponding to the creation of the the 10 million virtual works.

The virtueal works are standard ERC-20 tokens and token owners are free to share these artworks and even divide them into smaller pieces before sharing. Indeed, they are divisible to 18 decimal places. 

Abosch says, “While the virtual work could exist without the creation of the physical work, the physical artworks could not have a meaningful existence were it not for the creation of the virtual artworks. In this sense, the work mirrors the unidirectional mechanism of a cryptographic algorithm — With a private key you can deduce the wallet address, but with the wallet address you cannot deduce the private key.”

In 2018, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia showed Abosch’s installation “Personal Effects”, five canvas sacs imprinted with blockchain wallet addresses, each containing a quantity of IAMA Coins but because the private keys to these wallets have not been saved, they are virtually dead. Abosch sees these virtual artworks as pieces of himself and therefore exist as relics or personal effects.

In “Perfect & Priceless” Abosch presents a Mylar-foil pouch containing a piece of cotton cloth impregnated with the artist’s own blood. The declaration “I AM A COIN” is written on the front of the pouch along with the blockchain contract address for IAMACOIN.

CÉSAR ESCUDERO ANDALUZ & MARTIN NADAL | BITTERCOIN
"The worst miner ever"

CÉSAR ESCUDERO ANDALUZ & MARTIN NADAL BITTERCOIN "The worst miner ever"

Bittercoin, image courtesy of escuderoandaluz.com

The Bitcoin was originally conceived as an electronic decentralized system for capital transactions. Each node (user) has the same opportunities to get a reward when validating a transaction. This system has triggered a competitive struggle in which computing power is the most important variable for earning bitcoins. This involves the use of large computer farms spending physical and environmental resources, creating a struggle that benefits only the owner of the most powerful and efficient technology.

The only way to generate bitcoins is through a process called mining. Mining is a calculation process to confirm transactions realized by bitcoin users and used to secure the transactions and to control the creation of new coins, writing them into a public ledger of past transaction called the blockchain.

Bittercoin is an old calculator machine hacked to be used as a miner validating the pending bitcoin transactions in the blockchain. Embedded inside the calculator is a bluetooth microcontroller which allows the calculator keys to be controlled remotely via a mobile phone. The phone has three functional purposes; to connect the calculator to the blockchain, get the blockheader, and send it to the calculator. Once a blockheader is received, the calculator randomizes a nonce and begins the verification process.

The verification uses an algorithm that is displayed on the screen of the calculator as it processes and prints the immediate steps of its calculation. The connection by phone has been chosen for two reasons; to show visual output of the calculation process and to be able to exhibit the piece using a 3G Wi-Fi connection. If a nonce that produces a hash smaller than the hash of the blockchain target, then a new block has successfully been mined.

Bittercoin combines Internet of Things (IoT), media archeology, and economics. It works as the most basic computer, increasing the time needed to produce bitcoins to almost an eternity. The operations are displayed on the calculator screen and printed afterwards.

DISTRIBUTED GALLERY | THE CHAOS MACHINE

The Chaos Machine by Distributed Gallery

DISTRIBUTED GALLERY
The Chaos Machine, image courtesy of Distributed Gallery

The Chaos Machine is the second blockchain-based artwork of the Distributed Gallery deepening the links between art and money. One year after the poker-like joke of the Ready-Made Token (appropriated Richard Prince scam), the Distributed Gallery engaged in a more physical artwork.

In one word, The Chaos Machine allows anyone to insert a banknote inside; once inserted, this note falls into the window space and is deposited on a heating resistor. In exchange? The machine will randomly play music and offer the user, via a smart contract, the possibility to integrate a song to the playlist. At the moment, this machine exists in two copies. One is on display at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin and the other in the Perfect and Priceless exhibition. As soon as a ticket burns on one of these Chaos Machines, music is played on each one. So, if one hears music coming out of the Chaos Machine but no bills are burning, then it means that someone else is burning bills on the other Chaos Machine.

Is it a crypto-jukebox? Or a sophisticated toaster? In the special edition of the Chaos Machine, published on summer 2018 by R.U.S.T editions, Bernard Aspe, a french philosopher call it the Exterminating Angel, maybe because the Chaos Machine shows in a spectacular way, either the passage from a fiducial currency to a cryptographic currency, or even the emptiness inherent in any monetary abstraction.

Unlike the Ready-Made Token, the Chaos Machine is a physical artwork, designed to be reproducible. In order to become a virus-like machine, the Distributed Gallery left the plans and the code available for anyone to build their own Chaos Machine.

CULLEN MILLER & GABRIEL DUNNE | CLAVES ANGELICÆ
An installation and procedural system that enables a participant to inscribe a magical Word onto the Ethereum network

CULLEN MILLER & GABRIEL DUNNE | CLAVES ANGELICÆ

GABRIEL DUNNE AND CULLEN MILLER
Claves Angelicae, 2018

Claves Angelicæ is a seven-step process to guide one through the process of securely constructing a Word with an ‘Alphabet of Desire.’ This Alphabet of Desire is a mediation with one’s own libidinal framework. Magic has many aspects, but it primarily acts as a dramatized system of psychology. It is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with one’s Will. A magical spell is quite literally the spelling out of a Word. Once the Word is constructed within oneself it is set in motion by bringing it forth into grammar and sound. When completed one must seal it and cast it out into the Ethereum network.

The seven-step process is designed to collect and transmute the participants’ input data into an encrypted message. For the participant to cast their Word they must transmit Ether to a preselected set of charities. Once the spell has been cast and verified by the consensus pool, the transaction signature’s hash is returned, parsed, and passed into a sigil generating algorithm. The participant receives an inked paper talisman authored by a mechanical plotter drawing machine as a tokenized sigil of their spell.

READ ABOUT ALL THE ARTWORKS

Installation Images